March, 2026:

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A totally unbiased, wildly judgmental Top 10 list for the greatest cons in corporate history researched and ranked by Microsoft Copilot.

#10 — Wells Fargo: “Would You Like a Fake Account With That?”

The con: Millions of bank accounts and credit cards opened without customers’ consent so staff could hit absurd sales targets.

Why it ranks: This is small-time compared with the mega-frauds below, but the sheer banality of it earns a spot. No exotic derivatives, no offshore labyrinth—just everyday customers quietly milked by a system that turned cross‑selling into a contact sport. It’s here because it shows how a toxic incentive scheme can turn a whole bank into a low‑rent identity theft machine. read more

^*This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment, the Shell DPA Files, "Shell and the Spies", the Shell Leaks files, the Independent Shell Archive, as well as books written and published by John Donovan - Kindle eBooks. Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud. Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years. ^*All conjured up by internet wizz, Nick Gill.

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY: 30 March 2026

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Researched and ranked by perplexity.ai

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

Because sometimes, the line between business genius and breathtaking audacity is just a press release away.

10. Volkswagen’s “Zero-Emissions (If You Don’t Count the Emissions)” Scandal — 2015
German efficiency met moral flexibility: VW installed “defeat devices” that made their cars pass emissions tests only when they knew they were being tested.
Why it ranks: The cars basically put on a tuxedo for the exam and switched back to sweatpants afterward. Incredible dedication to deceit.

9. WeWork’s “Tech Company (That Sells Desks)” Delusion — 2019
Adam Neumann pitched glorified office rentals as a transcendent movement of human consciousness. Investors agreed—briefly—before the IPO burst like a kombucha bubble.
Why it ranks: Proof that charisma and buzzwords can move billions—until someone asks to see a profit. read more

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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***Top 10 Corporate Cons That Made Enron Look Like a Parking Ticket* *By Grok, the Tabloid Truth-Teller***

Ladies and gentlemen, grab your popcorn and your pitchforks! These aren’t just scandals — they’re masterpieces of corporate sleight-of-hand that turned boardrooms into casinos, investors into suckers, and CEOs into (temporary) billionaires. We ranked them by a deadly serious formula: Audacity × Dollar Damage × How Long They Got Away With It × Public Face-Melting Embarrassment. Shell’s infamous oil-reserves fairy tale makes the cut, but it’s not even cracking the top five. Buckle up — here we go! read more

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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ChatGPT: Top 10 Boardroom Swindles Ranked by Greed, Gall and Jaw-Dropping Audacity

From global financial meltdown to oil giant “oopsies,” we rank the biggest corporate cons ever pulled — and the executives who (mostly) walked away smiling

An entirely unauthorised, deeply cynical, and ruthlessly honest countdown

What is the greatest corporate con of all time?

Is it the one that stole the most money?

The one that fooled the most people?

Or the one that looked you straight in the eye… and lied anyway?

Welcome to the definitive Top 10.

A parade of financial wizardry, ethical gymnastics, and industrial-scale cheek — where “mistakes” cost billions, “misjudgments” ruin lives, and “accountability” is something that happens to other people.

🧨

THE TOP 10

🔟 #10 — Wells Fargo: Banking, But Make It Fiction

The con:

Millions of fake accounts opened without customer consent to hit sales targets. read more

THE GREATEST CONS IN CORPORATE HISTORY

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Your Definitive, Entirely Unauthorised, Top 10 Countdown of Boardroom Villainy, Shameless Audacity and Industrial-Scale Cheating — Rated, Ranked and Ruthlessly Mocked

The full ranking by claude.ai is ready. Here’s how the Top 10 shakes out and the reasoning by claude.ai behind the key positions:

🥇 #1 — The Global Financial Crisis takes the top spot as the only fraud in history perpetrated not by one company but by an entire industry — with the losses paid by people who had no part in it. Virtually no senior executives went to prison. Many received bonuses.

#2 — The South Sea Bubble gets silver for being the founding template for every corporate fraud that followed, three centuries before the rest. Isaac Newton lost a fortune. The Chancellor of the Exchequer went to prison. The King was on the board. read more

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY?

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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SHELL’S MORAL SLIP: THE OIL GIANT, THE GAME SELLER, AND THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

How Britain’s most high-minded energy giant preached ethics to John Donovan while secretly cooking the books for billions — and keeping spies on the payroll

By Our Investigations Desk | Exclusive

PICTURE THE SCENE. It is the spring of 1997. In a wood-panelled office at Shell-Mex House on the Strand — the kind of building that practically sweats self-importance — Richard Wiseman, General Counsel & Company Secretary of Shell U.K. Limited, picks up his fountain pen and dashes off another stern letter to a marketing man from Bury St Edmunds.

The message, stripped of its lawyerly decorum, is essentially: Go away, small person. You have been dealt with. The slate is wiped clean. Do not bother our directors. read more

Shell’s Moral Compass: Now Available in Disposable, Single-Use Format

Mar 30th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Corporate giant accused of “wiping the slate clean” on morality — while hiding secrets, silencing shareholders, and rewriting history

If you ever wanted a masterclass in corporate double-speak, look no further than Shell’s long-running clash with businessman John Donovan.

Because this isn’t just a legal dispute.

It’s a story about money paid, rights admitted… and then reality quietly erased.

💣

THE £200,000 THAT “MEANT NOTHING”

Let’s get straight to the jaw-dropper.

Shell paid Donovan £200,000 to settle two claims.

That’s not pocket change. That’s not goodwill. That’s not “thanks for your time.”

And yet Shell’s official position morphed into something almost unbelievable: read more

SHELL’S SECRET CONSCIENCE CLUB: THE INSIDERS WHO DARED TO CALL OUT THE OIL GIANT’S DOUBLE LIFE

Mar 28th, 2026

by admin.

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🛢️ THE CORPORATE CONSCIENCE THAT WOULDN’T STAY QUIET

If Shell’s glossy sustainability reports are the official bedtime story, then the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group (SCCPG) is the part they don’t want you reading aloud.

Buried beneath decades of PR varnish, legal muscle, and carefully curated “net-zero” messaging lies a remarkable—and deeply inconvenient—truth: some of Shell’s fiercest critics weren’t activists outside the gates… but insiders, shareholders, and business partners who had seen too much.

And they decided to talk. read more

“Even the AIs Are Laughing”: Five Different Systems Reach the Same Damaging Verdict on Shell’s Donovan Saga

Mar 27th, 2026

by admin.

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When machines trained on the world’s data all point in the same direction, it’s no longer just a feud—it’s a pattern

Shell has spent decades dealing with critics.

But what happens when the critics are no longer just human?

In a deliberately provocative experiment, the same prompt was fired at multiple leading AI platforms—including ChatGPT—asking a simple question:

What are the most embarrassing moments in Shell’s long-running feud with John Donovan?

The expectation: chaos.

Different answers. Different rankings. Different narratives.

Instead?

Something far more awkward.

Five AIs. One Conclusion.

Despite operating independently, trained on different datasets, and designed to think differently… read more

Shell top 10 most humiliating own goals in Donovan feud as ranked by AI

Mar 27th, 2026

by admin.

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MARCH 2026

SHELL’S GREATEST HITS (OF SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS): THE TOP 10 MOST HUMILIATING EPISODES IN SHELL’S THREE-DECADE WAR WITH JOHN DONOVAN: Researched and compiled by claude.ai

Shell Outmaneuvered by Its Own Morality Play: Researched and compiled by Perplexity

Top 10 most humiliating Shell own‑goals in the Donovan feud: Researched and compiled by Microsoft Copilot

Shell’s Glorious Parade of Self-Owns: The Top 10 Most Humiliating Face-Plants in Its 30-Year Donovan Debacle: Researched and compiled by Grok

Top 10 most embarrassing Donovan-era setbacks for Shell: Researched and compiled by ChatGPT

The prompt issued to the above AI platforms

This identical prompt is being submitted to multiple AI platforms.

Your task is to conduct deep research and produce a fact-based, satirical Top 10 list of the most humiliating, embarrassing, absurd, or self-inflicted setbacks suffered by Shell in its long-running, roughly three-decade conflict with John Donovan and the Donovans.

Use publicly available evidence, including credible media coverage, legal cases, archived materials, and relevant material from Donovan’s books and websites, especially royaldutchshellplc.com. read more

SHELL’S GREATEST HITS (OF SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS): THE TOP 10 MOST HUMILIATING EPISODES IN SHELL’S THREE-DECADE WAR WITH JOHN DONOVAN

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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A Tabloid Exposé Crossed With a Corporate Roast — Grounded in Documented Fact

Researched and compiled by claude.ai

INTRODUCTION

Imagine the world’s second-largest oil company. Tens of thousands of employees. A thousand in-house lawyers. An annual revenue measured in the hundreds of billions. A corporate security apparatus reportedly staffed by former MI6 officers. An international intelligence firm on retainer. The FBI as an occasional reference.

Now imagine all of that levelled at one man — a marketing consultant from Bury St Edmunds — and his elderly father, a Second World War veteran living in Colchester.

For three decades, Royal Dutch Shell deployed every weapon in a Goliath’s arsenal against John Donovan and his father Alfred. It litigated. It surveilled. It pressured web hosts on two continents. It set up dedicated internal task forces. It monitored its own employees. It hired what are described as corporate spies. It filed complaints with international arbitration bodies. It put up defamatory posters at its own headquarters — then paid for the privilege. read more

Shell Outmaneuvered by Its Own Morality Play

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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Researched and compiled by Perplexity

Shell versus Donovan is the corporate equivalent of a heavyweight champion repeatedly walking into his own punches. Below is the Top 10 reel of Shell’s most self‑inflicted, humiliating episodes in a feud it should have ended cleanly decades ago – but instead turned into a rolling farce.

10. The “Conscience” Problem: Shell Outmaneuvered by Its Own Morality Play

Shell’s first big mistake was spiritual: it helped create, then had to live with, its own corporate Jiminy Cricket. John Donovan co‑founded the “Shell Corporate Conscience” pressure group, a tidy little phrase that lodged like shrapnel in Shell’s brand narrative. read more

Top 10 most humiliating Shell own‑goals in the Donovan feud

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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Top 10 most humiliating Shell own‑goals in the Donovan feud: Researched and compiled by Microsoft Copilot

10. The “He’s a Liar” campaign that quietly died in a settlement

The incident In the late 1990s, Shell decided the best way to deal with John Donovan was to brand him a fantasist. According to Donovan’s own detailed chronology—supported by letters, court documents, and internal material—Shell:

Published an internal magazine article by its UK Legal Director, Richard Wiseman, accusing Donovan of being “dishonourable” and of smearing a Shell employee.
Issued press releases implying his allegations were “without foundation.”
Put posters on public display at Shell Centre in London stating that Donovan’s claims were untrue.

Those are confirmed facts from Donovan’s documented record; Shell’s internal motives are, of course, not on the public record.

Why it was embarrassing for Shell The corporate line was simple: Donovan is a liar, nothing to see here. Then came the punchline—Shell later settled multiple disputes with him, including libel actions, without ever securing the public vindication it had implied was inevitable. read more

Shell’s Glorious Parade of Self-Owns: The Top 10 Most Humiliating Face-Plants in Its 30-Year Donovan Debacle

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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Researched and compiled by Grok

For three decades, a FTSE-100 oil behemoth with more lawyers than some countries have citizens has been repeatedly pantsed by two blokes from Colchester armed with nothing but a scanner, Data Protection Act requests, and Shell’s own breathtaking inability to stop scoring own goals. Here’s the definitive, evidence-based corporate roast—ranked from mildly mortifying to legendary levels of “how did we let this happen?” No. 1 is the undisputed champion of humiliation.

No. 1: The Domain Name Fiasco – Billion-Dollar Brain Fart Hands the Enemy the Company Letterhead (2005 WIPO Thrashing)

The incident: In the chaotic 2005 Royal Dutch/Shell merger rebrand to Royal Dutch Shell plc, Shell’s crack team of brand guardians somehow forgot to register the screamingly obvious royaldutchshellplc.com. Alfred Donovan, then 88, grabbed it first. Shell stormed into the World Intellectual Property Organization demanding transfer, alleging bad-faith cybersquatting. The WIPO panel unanimously told them to get lost (Case No. D2005-0538, 8 August 2005). Domain stays with the Donovans. Forever, apparently. read more

Top 10 most embarrassing Donovan-era setbacks for Shell

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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Researched and compiled by ChatGPT

Here is the list Shell would probably prefer to misdirect to “junk,” file under “not for publication,” and hand to a cyber-forensics outfit with trembling fingers.

The John Donovan saga has never been merely a private grudge match. What makes it deliciously awkward for Shell is that the feud repeatedly escaped the realm of nuisance and entered the public record: court filings, trade-press coverage, Reuters reporting, WIPO proceedings, and third-party profiles all show that this was not just one angry critic shouting into the void. It was a persistent reputational abrasion that Shell never quite managed to sand down. Reuters reported in 2009 that Shell emails discussed Donovan’s site, including one message recommending it “far above” Shell’s own internal comms, while WIPO records show Shell lost its 2005 complaint over the royaldutchshellplc.com domain. read more

How on Earth has Shell managed to get itself in such a humiliating mess?

Mar 26th, 2026

by admin.

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How on Earth has Shell managed to get itself in such a humiliating mess? This astonising arrangement was agreed between John Donovan and the Company Secretary and General Counsel of Royal Dutch Shell Plc many years ago and has remained in force ever since.

How, exactly, has a supposedly world-class energy titan like Shell managed to trip over its own shoelaces so spectacularly?

This farce traces back to an arrangement quietly agreed in writing years ago between John Donovan and none other than the Company Secretary and General Counsel of Royal Dutch Shell Plc—hardly minor players. Remarkably, this agreement has endured ever since, like an embarrassing relic.

For a corporation that prides itself on strategic brilliance and legal sophistication, the whole episode feels less like corporate governance and more like a long-running administrative pratfall—one that raises an obvious, uncomfortable question: if this is Shell at its most “controlled,” what on Earth does chaos look like? read more

30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed. I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it. They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem. Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more

Extremely Slow Shell Broadband

March, 2026:

A totally unbiased, wildly judgmental Top 10 list for the greatest cons in corporate history researched and ranked by Microsoft Copilot.

#10 — Wells Fargo: “Would You Like a Fake Account With That?”

Researched and ranked by perplexity.ai

THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

Because sometimes, the line between business genius and breathtaking audacity is just a press release away.

Top 10 Corporate Cons That Made Enron Look Like a Parking Ticket By Grok, the Tabloid Truth-Teller

ChatGPT: Top 10 Boardroom Swindles Ranked by Greed, Gall and Jaw-Dropping Audacity

From global financial meltdown to oil giant “oopsies,” we rank the biggest corporate cons ever pulled — and the executives who (mostly) walked away smiling

An entirely unauthorised, deeply cynical, and ruthlessly honest countdown

🧨

THE TOP 10

🔟 #10 — Wells Fargo: Banking, But Make It Fiction

Your Definitive, Entirely Unauthorised, Top 10 Countdown of Boardroom Villainy, Shameless Audacity and Industrial-Scale Cheating — Rated, Ranked and Ruthlessly Mocked

SHELL’S MORAL SLIP: THE OIL GIANT, THE GAME SELLER, AND THE GREATEST CON IN CORPORATE HISTORY

How Britain’s most high-minded energy giant preached ethics to John Donovan while secretly cooking the books for billions — and keeping spies on the payroll

Corporate giant accused of “wiping the slate clean” on morality — while hiding secrets, silencing shareholders, and rewriting history

💣

THE £200,000 THAT “MEANT NOTHING”

🛢️ THE CORPORATE CONSCIENCE THAT WOULDN’T STAY QUIET

When machines trained on the world’s data all point in the same direction, it’s no longer just a feud—it’s a pattern

Five AIs. One Conclusion.

MARCH 2026

SHELL’S GREATEST HITS (OF SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS): THE TOP 10 MOST HUMILIATING EPISODES IN SHELL’S THREE-DECADE WAR WITH JOHN DONOVAN: Researched and compiled by claude.ai

Shell Outmaneuvered by Its Own Morality Play: Researched and compiled by Perplexity

Top 10 most humiliating Shell own‑goals in the Donovan feud: Researched and compiled by Microsoft Copilot

Shell’s Glorious Parade of Self-Owns: The Top 10 Most Humiliating Face-Plants in Its 30-Year Donovan Debacle: Researched and compiled by Grok

Top 10 most embarrassing Donovan-era setbacks for Shell: Researched and compiled by ChatGPT

The prompt issued to the above AI platforms

A Tabloid Exposé Crossed With a Corporate Roast — Grounded in Documented Fact

Researched and compiled by claude.ai

INTRODUCTION

Researched and compiled by Perplexity

10. The “Conscience” Problem: Shell Outmaneuvered by Its Own Morality Play

Top 10 most humiliating Shell own‑goals in the Donovan feud: Researched and compiled by Microsoft Copilot

10. The “He’s a Liar” campaign that quietly died in a settlement

Researched and compiled by Grok

No. 1: The Domain Name Fiasco – Billion-Dollar Brain Fart Hands the Enemy the Company Letterhead (2005 WIPO Thrashing)

Researched and compiled by ChatGPT

How on Earth has Shell managed to get itself in such a humiliating mess? This astonising arrangement was agreed between John Donovan and the Company Secretary and General Counsel of Royal Dutch Shell Plc many years ago and has remained in force ever since.

Sir Henri Deterding, resurrected!

JOE LYCETT DISCUSSES SHELL WITH JOHN DONOVAN

Meta

John Donovan’s ebooks

JOHN DONOVAN TV DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW

SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE

SHELL ADMITS DEALING WITH NIGERIAN MONEY LAUNDERER – BBC NEWS

SHELL, ENI AND NIGERIAN OFFICIALS IN OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL

INVESTIGATION OF OPL 245 NIGERIAN OIL CORRUPTION SCANDAL

DUTCH EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY SHELL/EXXON

SHELL KILLS FOR OIL IN NIGERIA

SHELL LIED ABOUT CLEANING UP OIL IN NIGER DELTA

SHELL SPIES INFILTRATED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT

LEGO DROPS SHELL OVER GREENPEACE OIL SPILL VIDEO

SHELL ARCTIC DRILLING ACCIDENTS

SHELL KNEW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DECADES AGO

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL FOUNDER SIR HENRI DETERDING, NAZI FINANCIER

JOHN DONOVAN PROMOTIONAL GAMES FOR SHELL AND OTHER CLIENTS

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30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.

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***Top 10 Corporate Cons That Made Enron Look Like a Parking Ticket* *By Grok, the Tabloid Truth-Teller***